For me, one of the most intriguing groups to take the stage was a trio of women associated with W Austin’s Trace restaurant: W Austin executive chef Nadine Thomas, Trace restaurant forager Valerie Broussard and Paula Foore of Austin’s Springdale Farm, a 3 1/2-year-old urban farm that supplies Trace and other restaurants in Texas. Together, they are trying to run and supply a restaurant that has a mantra to make sure that everything on the menu is “farmed, hunted, foraged or crafted.” It’s a heady political statement for a restaurant that’s in a hotel chain, and it’s one they’ve been able live up to, as we found out in this talk. (Since the interview, Chef Thomas and Trace have hired a chef de cuisine, Ben Hightower, ex of Uchiko, to oversee the kitchen at Trace.)

Besides the talk of how to actually pull off the farm-to-fork concept with sustainable ingredients as locally grown or produced as possible, there’s also a funny interchange about what the Trace team served during the unveiling of the Willie Nelson statue outside the adjoining Austin City Limits music venue, which occurred — when else? — on 4/20.